Previous storms yielded less than five email inquires for Masseo Landscape and some annoying phone calls that were not always answered. This new approach gave my client a considerable boost and made his job a lot easier.

If you’re in the snow removal business, you know it’s no fun to answer the phone in your truck during a storm, because you’re busy taking care of your customers…

This is how your phone could look the next time it snows.

But wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t have to answer the phone at all? …and 20 or 30 names and addresses of desperate, snowbound homeowners, (in your service area), magically appeared on your smartphone?

You could make a lot of extra money after you take care of your existing customers, right? That would be gravy money, wouldn’t it?

Well, I’m going to tell you how you can immediately get a lift in snow removal inquiries from your website. But first, I have a few things to get off my chest…

Only a Snow Removal Contractor Could Relate to This Rant

(If you’re not a contractor, this section might offend you, so skip ahead.)

For the select few, who have ever had the displeasure of doing snow removal for a living, and running a plow truck all night long, you know how utterly stressful and dangerous it is, and how insanely unprepared people can be.

The reason I know this, is because many years ago I used to run a snow removal businesses myself and in my experience, the normal people would contact me some time between September and November to secure snow removal for the winter.

Then there were the ones that would wait till the middle of a storm to call. I never had much sympathy for those folks, especially the nudnicks that would call and ask me for an “estimate” in the middle of a storm…

Yes, in the middle of a storm, I’d have people ask me to come out and give them an “estimate.” Yeah – good luck with that…

Well you can imagine how short those conversations were, and after 18 hours in a plow truck, you kinda stop caring about being cordial. Call me an asshole, but you’re lucky to get a snow removal contractor on the phone at all, and to get one that answers the phone during a storm is unheard of… but I digress.

Sorry for the rant, it just brings back a lot of memories I’d rather forget. I get a little amped up because I hear these stories from my landscaping clients all the time. They call me after a big snow to rant about the jerkoffs that called them during the storm. They call me because they know I get it, I’ve been there, and it’s kinda fun to BS about all the nonsense people try to pull.

But what does all this have to do with marketing? Yep, sorry for rambling. Here’s what I’ve learned…

How to Increase Contact Form Inquiries And Decrease Disruptive Phone Inquiries During a Snow Event

(This tip assumes that your website has good, local search engine exposure, and people are already contacting you via your website.)

When you’re plowing, you don’t want to answer your phone, but emails to your smartphone can easily be dealt with when you’re ready to stop for a break.

Step One

To discourage phone calls during snow events and get people to email my landscaping client with their contact details and location, I used the WordPress BoomBar Plugin to cast a message across the top of all his snow related landing pages. Here’s a screenshot:

Step Two – (This is a Neat Conversion Tip)

We had some really fantastic results when we took it a step further and specifically stated that the contact form submissions went directly to the plow driver’s phone, as seen to the left.

More people tended to submit the contact form when they thought the man with the power was getting their emails right in his truck.

This eliminated the barrage of phone calls, and gave the driver all the info he needed to locate each residence with Google Maps, without having to waste time writing anything down.

Most contractors will attest to the fact that after big snow storm, you can spend a couple of days fielding all the inquiries from those that did not have snow removal secured for the winter. Or, their plow guy didn’t show, because he “retired” unannounced. (I heard that one a lot, back in the day… I might have to use that line next time I don’t want to do a job for someone – I’m retired.)

Having customers send emails right to your phone, with all the necessary contact info allows you to concentrate on your job and it makes your life a whole lot easier. You can take that to the bank, literally.